Im having great difficulty in finding out who my 4 times great-grandmother was.
I know her name and I know who she married and I know of 3 children.
What I dont know is where she was from as she only appears in one census, 1841 with her children, then vanishes and her children are in the next census ( 1851 ) all either away at school or with relatives. Unfortunately the 1841 census will only confirm if they were from the county they lived in, unlike subsequent census.
She is almost certainly not english so I wonder if any of you well travelled folk have any idea roughly where the surname originates from.
Her full name is Franziske Alexandrina Antoinette Emilie Ardenghi.
Its not exactly a common name for someone born around 1810 but she is like a ghost, so if anyone thinks they know where the surname is from, id be very grateful.
What I do know is that her husband was a Master Mariner based in Liverpool, so she could pretty well be from anywhere. I do know from a book written about a prominant family that her daughter married into, that in 1888 she was alive ( when the book was published ).
Im leaning towards Italy, but the spelling of her first name seems more German.
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"4 times great-grandmother "
4 times a night or 4 times in her whole life?
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Well judging by the rate of reproduction back then, I expect thats atleast a weekly figure :-)
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No apologies for posting this Armstrong & Miller 'Who do you think you are' (celebrity genealogy) spoof again:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c65QRaR16io
(keep with it until at least 1:10)
Last edited by: Focus on Tue 24 May 11 at 13:44
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Forgot to add that there are a number of German speaking areas in Northern Italy, especially the Tyrol so the the German Christian names are not that unusual.
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>> German speaking areas in Northern Italy,
Yes, and there's Trieste which is very close to the Slavic Balkans. The first name has a sort of east European ring to it. I was thinking perhaps that sort of area, southern Switzerland or the Italian lakes.
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Thats fab, I didnt know that, I knew someone would have the answer, Ive never been to Italy so its very foreign to me!
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Alexandrina
There's something rings a bell about the 'ina' suffix indicating child of in Eastern Europe. She could therefore be the child of Alexander or Alexandra?
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Franziske is even more Slavic sounding. But Antoinette and Emilie are both very French. And there are many French people with a) some East European ancestry and b) Italianate surnames. So the possible choice is quite wide.
Sorry to stir it like this Stu, but you knew it was a puzzle in the first place...
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Not at all, Im lucky I have some interesting family, there are many foreign arms to my mums family and unlike many people of 150 years ago, they travelled around alot, its just more of a challenge when they dont live in the same 4 villages in Kent that my fathers family did.
Interesting note about her - she went by Antoinette in normal circumstances although at the christenings of her children she states her full name, so even she thought it a little wordy!
Her daughter, my 3rd gr-grandmother also has Antoinette as her middle name so it seems to hold some significance.
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Her first name Franciska is Hungarian with a French meaning.
The name Ardenghi is from Venice according to a dutch website.Nice names.
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"-icha" is the common form of feminine patronymic ending in Russian. "-ina" is not such an ending generally speaking (it would only really occur where the father's name already ended with "-in" and an "a" has been added), so it is more a feminising ending added to male names than a "daughter of" ending, as with this example "Alexandrina". "Daughter of Alexander" would be rendered as "Alexandrova" or "Alexandrovicha".
It would also be seen when feminising a surname, as they must be in Russian for girls/women, although this is not the case with FoR's example of Alexandrina as it isn't a surname. E.g - Mrs Lenin would have been Gospodina Lenina. That just looks like a feminine version of Alexander, as are the more common Alexandra and Alexa.
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Any ideas on where this surname is from? - BiggerBadderDave
